Loss in reality is a much more serious matter. Loss of a job, a pet, a friend. Loss of sight, of health, of the way things were. Loss of love. Loss of a loved one. These losses are much more difficult to rebound from.

What about losing the ability to go outside? Think about that one for a moment – it is sad. For one grandmother diagnosed with cancer, that’s all she wanted: to be in the sunlight and nature one last time. While physically unable to do so, her daughter’s connection to the gaming world and the good people at Oculus provided her with a way to experience that from the comfort of her own chair. Using the Oculus Rift, she was able to vicariously experience being outside, seeing butterflies and experience the simple joy being able to climb stairs again. The video may be over 12 minutes long, but go into it understanding that the woman you see in the video here passed away four months after the video was shot. It gives an added measure of meaning and beauty to the whole thing.

Support certainly helps ease the pain of loss, but what about the personal side of that equation? You can’t always rely on others to lift you out of the hole that loss created. Too often we don’t reach out for help, believing it better to keep such things to ourselves and fight our own battles. This is more especially true of loss that carries emotional investment. It’s not like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where we can erase painful memories and move on with life as if nothing happened, although scientists at the UC San Diego School of Medicine have recently shown that this may become a possibility in the future.

So how do games help us in the here and now to come to grips with loss? Sometimes a game can reach us in a special way, to help us come to a deeper realization of our current circumstances and discover the resolution necessary to push forward and make improvements in our lives.

As I mentioned earlier, I am divorced. I was married for three years, which I have come to learn from various readings to be a likely span of time for a divorce to happen. Some of you may not have experienced divorce before but please allow me to try and help you understand. Divorce isn’t too different a loss than death, really – it signifies the death of two people you used to care about and love deeply enough to devote your life and future to. Divorce is just your recognition that these two people, you and your significant other, are no more. You are only survived by a mirage of who you both once were.

That probably sounds depressing and pessimistic, yet I assure you that this view can be seconded by the many people who have suffered through divorce, either personally or through the devastating fallout from their parents.

Once the dust had settled from the divorce, I had obtained two new reminders that nothing would be the same again: chronic insomnia and depression. It is as I mentioned in my introductory article to this series. Listless nights with my mind tearing itself to pieces over opportunities gone by – that day, that week – which I had spent paralyzed by depression. The best I could do was try to distract myself with things like watching entire television series or playing through a video game just to feel proud about acquiring that trophy or achievement. I would let go and lose myself in another world for a while.

School and work helped serve as distractions, though it was painfully obvious that I was having a hard time applying myself there. This only worsened when two further events occurred with the university administrators. First, my degree audit, which had been approved by handfuls of student advisors in the past, was discovered to be out of date for a couple years. This meant that much of my progress towards graduation (and quite a bit of my money) had been squandered on unnecessary classes that put me over a crucial credit limit. That was news flash number two. The credit limit that I had passed would keep me from receiving financial aid after the current school semester. It also meant that, due to the university’s own allowed credit limit, I had two semesters left to graduate or be kicked out. This put a course correction towards my degree of choice out of reach. While the university apologized profusely for their oversight in my situation I was told after taking my case to the university president that ‘nothing could be done.’ My list of credits and I were mashed into a generic University Studies degree. While I could have graduated that same semester, their late action in my regard meant that it would actually happen in two, forcing me to pay for the last semester of schooling out of pocket.

Witnessing the scenario play out before my eyes was like an out of body experience. It was a front row seat to another tragic chapter in the main character’s life as they watched yet another lighted pathway into their future suddenly go dark. Once the numbness wore off and I found myself back in control of myself, I felt anything but. Within four months’ time I was suddenly alone and without a shred of a clue as to the rest of my future. I took inventory of what few relationships and possessions that I still had and cared about: my family, my friends, my gaming systems, my laptop and my two dogs.

The depression and loneliness worsened as I began to hyper-analyze these remaining relationships. My family lived mostly hundreds of miles away. No one in my immediate family has ever had to deal with divorce on a first hand basis and they often struggled to understand my depression and inability to move forward. At times, their gentle and not so gentle shoves to make progress in my life worsened my insomnia and depressive behaviors. I came to discover that some of my friends called on me mostly because they either felt pity or they wanted something. I do have a few genuine friends for whom I am truly grateful. In time I realized that even at their most sincere and cheerful, the relief from the encroaching darkness was only temporary and their absence would leave me feeling even lower than before. More and more I found myself avoiding and retreating from them. My laptop better served me in distraction than in journalizing my thoughts, since there was nothing more terrible than spending additional time stuck inside my head.

Video games became my most reliable safe haven. I could spend time being someone who wasn’t paralyzed by emotions, whose futures were exciting, whose lives were far more interesting than mine. Again, I realize how pessimistic that sounds. Yet my willingness to throw myself so completely into these gaming realms became a source of strength for my own reconstruction. As I have played since, I have rediscovered pieces of myself that have helped me on my road back to normalcy and happiness. However, none of this may have ever occurred if it wasn’t for one crucial gaming moment that gave me the courage to end my marriage. That game was Journey.

[SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR JOURNEY]

I played Journey for the first time at a critical point in my marriage. I tend to be optimistic by nature, yet for the first time in our marriage there was doubt, enough to begin to feel the pull of that vortex into the unknown. My wife had decided to do something I never imagined: she had picked up and walked out on me. Being a very emotional soft body, rather than face the difficult situation together she decided to bottle everything up inside and disappear for an undisclosed amount of time. Perhaps she thought that denial and avoidance would wave their magic arms around and in time make the problems disappear. However, I knew that she had decided to let the vortex take her. I can see myself grasping madly at her with one free hand and holding on to our marriage with the other. I figured that as long as I wouldn’t let go of either that we still had a chance. I was still hopeful. I just had to put that hope back inside of her.

Finding myself stranded alone within an empty house I had to distract myself. I booted up Journey, which I had downloaded a short while back but had not found myself in the mood or with the time to play. I found the pervasive Zen quality of the game extremely refreshing and intriguing in equal measure. It was dreamlike, hypnotic and relaxing. The music swept me away. I went into “my zone” and soon I forgot about everything. I was simply discovering this world and working steadily towards the beacon-lit mountain in the distance. At various points in the game, I met companions that would travel with me for a while but eventually they all vanished. Before long I had ascended to the snowy passes and drifts of the mountain alone, climbing towards the peak.

Those who have played Journey will understand that the game is more emotionally driven through visuals, music and gameplay than it is narratively driven. This can make what follows a bit difficult to explain, but I will do my best to express myself.

I pushed my robed traveler through the snowy squall-like winds up the mountain, passing what I had come to realize were grave markers along the way. The footsteps began to slow as the snow deepened. The traveler was so blasted with frost that his once ornate cloak was almost indistinguishable from his surroundings. I urged him onwards, my thumb jammed heavily into the joystick. I even coaxed him with my own spoken words. “C’mon…you can do this...keep going.” The blizzard obscured the path before me and the mountain top, my goal. With each step slower than the last, I slowly realized that this was it: I was going to die. The only things visible around me were the cold obelisks of other fallen travelers. The mountain pass was a graveyard and I would be buried with them by the snow. I was in disbelief. After all that my character had seen and explored and experienced he was just going to die here like so many others before him? Why? What was the purpose of the journey if he was going to die here and now? The traveler collapsed to his knees and then fell face first into the snow. The wind caught his cloak like the exhaling of a final breath as the blizzard grew quiet around him. It was complete emotional suspension; futility. The screen whited out.

As the snow cleared a bit, I saw that my character was now surrounded by the ethereal sentinels that had been enlightening me along my journey. A light poured through the scene and lifted my character from the snow. Revived, or perhaps in the act of traversing a veil of sorts, my character was suddenly vibrant, alive, and hurtling through the sky upwards. My anticipation built with curiosity. I felt the pull of heavy gravity working on me as I shot through the eye of the storm with the traveler. We were accelerating upwards through a vortex towards the bright light at the end, and exploding forth, swallowed in sunlight.

Euphoric catharsis: Those two words describe what I felt as the floating traveler’s eyes adjusted to the majestic display of blue sky, sun bleached clouds and ancient markers pointing the way to the mountain top. The weight I felt as my character ascended to this plane was gone. Emotionally I had cut something loose. I felt freedom; liberation. Just as my character had burst forth from the now unseen storm below, I burst into tears. I paused the game and wept silently, watching the panoramic scenery of the new area glide softly across the screen before me. What was it that had triggered such a powerful emotional reaction within me? What was it that I felt so freed from?

As I resumed the game I felt like my traveler, lightweight and twirling through the sky from marker to marker until my feet gently touched ground near the snow dusted peak of the mountain. I worked my way slowly through the narrow pass and watched as my character stepped into the white light of the beacon. As he continued further into that light, it encompassed him and he faded from view.

While the credits rolled, I reflected on my emotional reaction. I quickly attributed this to the symbolism and the passing of my brother James. It was true to an extent – I felt him closely in that moment too, although in time I recognized what it really was. I thought that I was the human bridge between my wife and saving our marriage, trying to keep her and myself from being swept into the centrifuge. The truth was that I was trying to hold on to my wife and our marriage in one hand and anchoring myself with something else.

Happiness: happiness that resides above the abysmal state of the bitter world below – and I was losing my grip on that. I knew that the time had come to get real and accept the relationship for what it was.

That night I decided that if certain things could not be accomplished in our relationship that I would be the one to end it before things got any worse. Suffice it to say that I gave my all during the following month and it wasn’t enough for her. I committed to the divorce and ended it, even after my wife began to second guess her actions against me.

Recently, we had a post-mortem discussion and she thanked me for making the difficult decision and following through on it. She said that she would not have been able to do the same, and I knew that. My ex-wife has since rediscovered herself, found another man who intends to marry her, and is enjoying her life once again.

I wish I could say that I was doing just as well, dear reader, but I am getting there. The truth is that this article took months to produce because I still struggle daily with the circumstances I find myself in. I have medicine for my insomnia and my depression, but even still I have episodes. I’ve since graduated and am still trying to find my way as I currently plan to move to California for graduate school and work. I still feel the pangs of loneliness and defeat when I see young, smiling married couples. I look at a cute girl missing a ring on her finger and the first thought that goes through my head is how much of a mess my life is right now.

That’s where video games help me come to terms with it all. We always press on. Yes, we may spend days or entire weeks grinding for experience, doing the same things over and over again. Time and effort will yield those moments where we will see change and progress. Previous demons that would destroy us with one fell swoop become conquerable. In the end, it doesn’t matter the number of times we failed to properly execute or that we even succeeded in every endeavor, but that we didn’t stay down. We did not give up. Like the traveler on the mountain, we keep going and give our all. Somehow it always ends up being just enough.

And so I have continued on and life has been getting better steadily. Even my gaming sessions have improved by simply trying to find pieces of myself in the games that I play. It’s a journey of self-discovery, of repair, and ultimately of triumph.

As of today, I look forward eagerly to my move to California. A fresh start, a new life. The idea of starting over, just like in any video game, brings a smile to my face. I’ve finally conquered this personal struggle of mine and can move on.

Maybe it is a good thing that loss in video games isn’t so heavily based on the weight of real life. Or maybe its simplicity is a reminder to us that life goes on. That there are such things as second chances. That the focus shouldn’t be so much on what was lost, so much as how we can improve and do better the next time around. That the sweetness of gaming and of life comes through effort, perhaps a little luck, and success. That this is what is worth gaming for and living for.

Hilariously, moving on reminds me of that terribly and infamously translated ending screen for the NES classic Ghost ‘n’ Goblins:

Knowing that after this "second playthrough," I'll finally get that real ending:

Thank you for reading and for your support of this series. I appreciate your patience with me while working on this piece, which was the most difficult to write.

I invite you to comment below on your experiences with video games and how they have helped you emotionally in your lives.

When I was twelve years old I didn't own a gaming system, but my various friends did. One particular friend, Jonathon, owned a PSOne and we played dozens of games together. Jon began complaining about chronic, painful headaches to the extent that his mother, a registered nurse, began to take notice. They went in and had MRI scans and x-rays, resulting in news that no one saw coming: a brain tumor. As a twelve year old boy, I never worried about it. Soon enough, I made plans to see Jon at the hospital after his surgery.

I never got to make that visit.

We are all born with an inherent belief in our own invincibility. We grow up reading books and watching TV shows about our heroes succeeding against insurmountable odds; never failing, never dying. We live just as recklessly as children, in innocence and unbound imagination. We fall, skin a knee, get back up and keep going. Even in video games you could always insert another coin or use an extra life to continue.

Then comes that one moment where reality comes crashing in through the windows of our childhood sanctuaries. That one moment in which we lose that innocence and are presented with a choice: accept reality and grow up or let the moment crush you.

This confrontation with death was my moment of innocence lost. In time I was able to retreat into the video games we used to play, not only to keep Jon’s memory alive, but to try and forget about my own vulnerability. I never had to worry about permadeath when I was running around Midgar as Cloud Strife or Dracula's Castle as Alucard. When my own world seemed far too bleak to find any enjoyment in, I could lose myself in digital worlds ripe for discovery -- and tap into some of that childhood imagination and innocence.

Video games weren't my only therapy for Jon’s passing; I had writing and poetry, reading, church and the support of family and friends. When I look back, I can see how video games helped me cope with these complex emotions that I had no idea how to manage at that young age. When real life became too much to bear, there was always another digital life to escape to.

Oftentimes in my gaming experience, I would forgo extra hours of sleep in order to keep playing in my favorite digital worlds. While lack of sleep is closely linked with mood disorders and other emotional problems, it is also a major health issue across the globe. In January of this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention proclaimed that insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic. It may sound a bit odd to call something as simple as losing a couple hours of sleep here and there a health epidemic, but study after study has linked insufficient sleep with a myriad of maladies. For example, those who cut sleep or fall asleep later than normal are 3-5 times more likely to suffer from depression and have a higher risk of heart disease.

So where is the line between healthy escapism and unhealthy escapism? We know -- all things in moderation -- of course. Yet sometimes we need a bit of a reality check, and that can be difficult to do. One concerned gamer suffering from bipolar disorder took this question to The Escapist's Dr. Mark J. Kline, a psychologist, for answers. Dr. Mark offers up these questions for consideration:

"Does gaming cause you to become less social and more withdrawn?...

"Does your mood worsen dramatically after you game, either because you miss being in a fantasy world, or you experience some kind of withdrawal from the intense stimulation of gaming?

"Do you find that the time and psychological investment placed in gaming interferes with your capacity to engage in other activities?"

While thinking about this topic, I decided to call up my friend Jonathan LaForce who served in the Marines in Afghanistan. He suffers from Post Traumatic Stress and has seen people choose fictional life over reality. During our phone interview he pointed out an important element that brought him and others back to a sense of normal life. "Responsibilities are a good thing, " Jon says. "At some point you have to come back to reality. Responsibilities can do that. We have to have those things, something, to help define us. If we don't have those responsibilities, we feel we have no more use and we remain in escapism."

Calling up my friend wasn't entirely my idea. It was inspired in part by an article posted on Giantbomb by Steven Beynon, video game blogger and cavalry scout in the Army. His article talks about how he and the men he served with used video games, first as something to cure the boredom in between assignments, and later as emotional therapy. He saw the opportunity to introduce video games to his platoon and took advantage of it. Before long, gaming meant much more to these soldiers than even Beynon imagined it could.

"As time went by, more firefights, more mortar strikes, more injuries, more deaths, and a growing pile of at-home relationships falling apart strained the men naturally," Beynon says in his article. "...The stress came from the girlfriends not following through with previously made commitments, the isolation from the outside world, and the reality of having zero control over the life left at home.

"Those harsh realities and overall boredom slowly brought people to me, to show them videogames...A few more Xboxs were ordered and before I knew it everyone was playing something...This was a very magical moment in my life."

Beynon demonstrated just how much these soldiers came to appreciate video games as an escape. "Months went by and the gaming only increased. Yes, we were running missions often but the soldiers moved Hell and Earth to lock down some game time. One time when attacked and everyone had to come outside the tents to fight, they were more upset about the Taliban interrupting their playtime."

Even still, Beynon realized that the "sad truth is [the] men came to my hobby out of desperation to escape sad reality."

This isn't surprising to the many of us gamers who have done the same. What is it about video games that makes them such a welcome form of escape? Studies have shown that gaming, at least at the casual level, can decrease stress and anxiety and improve mood. "Video games are a place where you are in control; a place where you can be king," Jon says. Dr. Mark from the Escapist also had something to say about this: "...[M]any people with relentless psychological and physical pain find respite in an activity which has a wonderful capacity to take them away from themselves and their woes. Gaming can extend the mind's ability to engage in imaginary journeys, and this kind of distraction offers tremendous relief...it provides a sense of empowerment and effectiveness that you have a hard time finding elsewhere."

I work as a presentation tutor at my university. Recently I've been helping a fellow tutor brainstorm a rather philosophical speech topic for her class. During that time it occurred to me that we have two modes: doing and feeling. Those who spend all day doing, or all day feeling, are unhappy. There has to be balance in our lives. We need the responsibilities, the doing things in real life, to keep us from being swallowed up in our emotions and our favorite forms of escape. We need our escapes, our favorite video games, to feel something and add important emotional context to our lives. We need to strike a balance between "the doing" and "the feeling."

I've done a lot of growing up since I was twelve years old. While I've moved on from my friend's passing, I've stumbled into many other life problems. I've lost an older brother to cancer weeks before my wedding. I've struggled for years to save an unhappy marriage that eventually resulted in divorce. I've fought against the uncertainty of the future after my university screwed up my degree and left me graduating with something I never intended or wanted.

Yet just as when I was twelve, I still escape into my perfect video game worlds. It doesn't matter if it is Pandora, or Dunwall, or Rapture, or Columbia, or Arkham City. It is there, in these worlds and in these characters, that I can find my twelve year old self again.

Where I can find the imagination again. The hope again.

Just like another coin in the arcade cabinet or an extra life, I escape to find myself, return and start out anew.

I can’t really remember the moment in which I realized that I had a problem with depression; probably because my own rationale fought to repress it.

You can’t possibly be depressed. Depression is for people with mental issues. You just need sleep. It’s all perspective. Or go do something productive -- just get out there. Do something. Why can't you go do anything?!

These are the thoughts that I would have as I lay awake in bed hating on myself.

Or sitting in the bathtub, water cascading down from the shower head as I held my knees and rocked back and forth, trying to ignore the mysterious appearance of a head twitch.

Or after an emotional upswing would send me speeding through town, blasting my music and singing, screaming, and/or pounding the beat with fists.

The instances of my being out of character began stacking up with a rhythm and repetition that became increasingly difficult to ignore.

I avoided being social with friends, gave away more work hours than I should have, cared less and less about my college degree, ever slowly retreating into my house, then my bedroom, and then my bed. Pulling my mentally awake yet physically exhausted body from my mattress was (and still is at times) a herculean task.

Just like books and movies, video games have always been a wonderful escape for me. The significance of those escapes grows as we attach emotion to it, and even more when those escapes become attached to the highest and lowest moments of our lives. For some, video games have been an escape from the realities of a broken family, abuse or loneliness. I too have used video games as an emotional crutch (for bad and for good) throughout my life; more recently, to avoid the ever encroaching depression that came to its climax just a few months ago.

To give all of this context, I should tell you of my experiences of how video games have served as emotional therapy in my life. I don’t do this for sympathy and I don’t really want yours. The true purpose of this writing is to discuss part of what makes video games so great – their ability to make us feel.

I've decided to divide my experiences in order to highlight four ways that video games have helped me process my emotions, and highlight some of the of the great video games that have helped us in the difficult times of our lives. I hope that this will spark some healthy discussion and draw attention to the importance of engrossing video games, the importance of emotion in digital storytelling and maintaining a healthy mentality as a gamer.

Stay tuned for these four upcoming articles in this series I am titling "Video Games as Emotional Therapy":

I've not posted about it publicly before, but I suffer from depression.

As a gamer, I realize that many of us have not just similar gaming likes and dislikes, but similar ways of coping with radical changes in our lives and emotions. I'm working on a post about how video games can serve as emotional therapy, and how best to go about this without abusing it. I also will use the post to discuss my personal struggles and experiences with this.

I've started my research into this topic en force and I would love to have your help.

I'm looking for people willing to contribute any of the following, related to video games used as emotional therapy:

sources

videos

links

and/or personal stories that you feel comfortable sharing

You may share more private stories that you want told anonymously via my email: nathan.r.cross @ gmail.com. These may or may not be used in the final post. Anything of a personal nature that you share and that I wish to use, I will ask first for your express permission to use it and ask for your instruction on how you wish it to be used. All persons who contribute will be credited in the final post via links to their IGN profiles and a description of their contribution in the sources provided at the end of the post.

Thank you everyone ahead of time for your comments, suggestions and help. Since I'm a busy college student, I hope you will be patient with me as I try to get back to your responses and get this post completed for your reading and sharing pleasure.